NETWORKING RECEPTION

Anita Borg Institute (ABI), a nonprofit organization, organized an event “Networking reception for women in technology” sponsored by Americam Express to inspire and connect the women technocrats. The event was held at ITC Maurya, New Delhi on 27th August 2015. 300 women technologists attended this event and 40 girl students from Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon belonging to ECE, CSE, CSIT & IT department along with faculty member Mrs. Sanghamitra V. Arora, also participated.

The Anita Borg Institute (ABI) connects, inspires, and guides women in computing and organizations that view technology innovation as a strategic imperative. It mainly focuses on the advancement of women in computer science and engineering, so launched its new initiative, ABI DELHI - NCR.

The event focused on building a local community that connects women technologists and local tech organizations; with the objective to inspire women to pursue long term careers in technical field.

The Networking Reception started with a welcome note by Geetha Kannan, Managing Director, ABI India, and the keynote speaker was Debjani Ghosh, Vice President and Managing Director, South Asia – Intel Corporation. She spoke on the title Leadership, Risk and the Growth of Women in Technology.

It was followed by a CEO panel discussion on the title Are Unconscious Biases Driving Our Decisions moderated by Geetha Kannan. The panelists were:

1. Dr. Anita Gupta, Director/Scientist and Associate Head - NSTEDB, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India;

2. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (India) pvt. Ltd;

3. Sandhya Vasudevan, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, Deutsch Bank Group India

4. Sanjay Rishi, President, American Express, South Asia.

The panel discussed that how the corporate world recognizes and handles bias at work and the ways by which they can sensitize employees to recognize and not to be influenced by such notions or expectations of behaviors.

Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director of Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) conducted a technical session on the title Network Equality Paves the Way for Digital India. In the light of the principle of network neutrality, this talk examined why it is necessary and what changes should be brought to the regulatory culture.

This event continued with another technical session on the title Big Data Analytics presented by Ankit Khanna, Sr. Vice President, Product Management, Snapdeal.com; Ravi Kothari, Chief Scientist, IBM Research, India and Soma Biswas (Vice President of products) Big Data Labs, American Express. This session brought together experts from diverse backgrounds to provide a rich perspective on the different big data techniques they leverage in their company, to drive value every single day.

A leadership session on the title Personal Branding: Discovering and leveraging your Uniqueness was presented by Anand Pillai, Managing Director - Leadership Matters Inc. This session covered aspects of building 'Personal Brand' and weaving life around this concept to become successful.

The event ended leaving a positive effect on the audience. It motivated women to rise up in the computing technology.